A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report Tuesday revealed alarming human rights abuses in Iran, including claims of mass arbitrary arrests and detentions since December, including of children, as well as torture and forced disappearances of protesters involved in the January demonstrations.
HRW found that Iranian authorities are carrying out violent arrests, and often sentencing detainees to death after summary trials. “Authorities have repeatedly vowed ‘speedy trials’ and a ‘harsh response’ without ‘any leniency.” Detainees have reportedly been denied legal counsel or contact with their families.
Detainees are reportedly subjected to torture and ill-treatment. HRW reported that “security forces including FARAJA, Revolutionary Guards, the Ministry of Intelligence, and plainclothes agents, have tortured protesters” with beatings and violence. One source said that security forces “arrested and beat a 16-year old boy at his home,” transferred him to a detention facility, “severely tortured” him, and denied him food for five days. There are also reports of sexual and gender-based violence in detention centers.
On February 19, Amnesty International reported that several arrested children were among those at risk of death penalty. The Amnesty report also raised alarm around reports of broadcasted coerced confessions in connection with protests. HRW said that some participants in protests have “never returned home” and may have been forcibly disappeared.
Protests in Iran began in December, triggered by economic instability and social unrest. State officials have firmly and violently cracked down on demonstrations. In January, Iran’s security forces reportedly carried out mass killings of protestors.
According to the UN, while Iranian authorities “have acknowledged 3,117 deaths and approximately 3,000 arrests,” human rights organizations “estimate these figures to be in the tens of thousands.”
HRW called on UN member states to demand the immediate release of detainees, “disclose the fate and whereabouts of people forcibly disappeared, halt any planned executions,” and allow the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, among other international monitors, “unhindered access to the country.”
Arbitrary detentions, torture, denial of the right to fair trial and due process, and forced disappearances violate international law, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment 1984, the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance 1992, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Minors are protected by the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989.
